


I will follow

by huffletiika



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Episode Fix-it, F/M, Gendry was in the ship, Valentine's Day Exchange, my outtake of what happens in the last chapter of S8, starts with a bit of angst but ends with a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huffletiika/pseuds/huffletiika
Summary: Right before the the Dragonpit council Arya finds Gendry and they have a long overdue conversation.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 28
Kudos: 103





	I will follow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PsychVamp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychVamp/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, PsychVamp! 
> 
> What I've always loved about your fics (which are my favorite, by the way) is that you take the canon and with a little change in the events you get to make amazing and more preferible changes to the story, so my present for you is my attempt to do the same with the last chapter of GoT. 
> 
> I hope you like it.
> 
> Pd. I haven't had time to get a beta for this, so I'm very sorry if there are mistakes, english is not my first language.

_“Gendry…”_

His name left Arya’s mouth before she could stop herself from saying it, her heart racing in her chest as she saw him freezing as he heard her, his broad back straightening up as if it had received a hard blow.

The Onion Knight, who was walking besides him, was the first to turn to look at her, kindly smiling at her as he realized who she was.

“Lady Arya, what a pleasant surprise,” he said, as Gendry turned around as well. Though, she noticed that his eyes were looking at anything but her. “Didn’t know you and Lord Baratheon knew each other,” he added, and the only thought that crossed her mind was that this was the first time anyone had referred to Gendry calling him a Lord in front of her. It had been too weird.

“Our paths have crossed,” she replied, and then looked at the newly named Lord of Storm’s End, hoping he would stop being so stubborn and looked at her at least. “Might I have a word before we head to the Dragonpit, My Lord?” she asked him, and she knew that if they had been alone he would have refused, but that was something he couldn’t do in the presence of the other man.

Still, a long minute passed without him speaking, it being Sir Davos Seaworth who finally broke the silence.

“I'll go check that the horses are ready in the meantime,” he announced, continuing on his way to where he had said he would go, after casting a curious glance in their direction.

They were silent for a few long seconds, and then his eyes fell on her again, and she felt a chill run down her spine.

She hadn't felt that even when that icy monster had grabbed her by the throat.

“What do you want, Arya?” Gendry finally asked, his voice echoing through the deserted corridor of what was left of the Red Keep. “If you came to advocate for your brother before his trial, that’s not necessary, he is my friend,” he said, and Arya shook her head.

“I know, I-” she sighed. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”

He seemed to be losing his patience.

If he ever had it.

“What is it, Arya?” he snapped. “I think you made it completely clear that night in Winterfell that you don't want to be with me, even after I told you how I feel, so you don't need to come twisting the dagger in my chest… I know I’m not very clever, but I swear I got it the first time.”

“I didn’t-” she started to say, and then she noticed what he was wearing. “Your Jerkin,” was what came out of her mouth instead of the words she intended to say.

he lowered his gaze to his outfit, and she could see the crimson hue on his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

Oh, how much she wanted to kiss him in that moment.

“It belonged to Renly, it is one of the few outfits from the previous Lord of Storm's End that fit me, but I asked for some changes to be made to show where my loyalties lie during the trial,” he explained, absently stroking the gray wool peeking out from the slits on the shoulders, which looked like scratches from a great beast... like a wolf. But then his hands stopped and he lowered them, looking at her as if he had just remembered that he was still mad at her.

Stupid stubborn bull.

“You still haven't answered my question,” he said, and she took a deep breath before speaking again.

“I was going to say that what I told you was that I wasn’t a Lady, not that I didn’t want to be with you,” she replied, and noticed the frown that appeared in his face, but she forced herself to continue speaking. “So many things happened in the last few weeks, and these made me realize that I was incomplete, that at some point between my father's murder and my return to Winterfell a part of me was lost. And, it wasn’t until I found myself in the middle of this very building, while it fell apart, that I found it.”

He looked puzzled, his face turning white with horror, as if he hadn't known she had been there during the attack.

He surely didn't know.

“What was it?” he asked instead of scolding her for being there, and she mentally thanked him.

“My desire to live,” she responded, noticing the emotions that ran through his face when she heard these words, but not being able to fully identify them because of how quickly they changed. “During all these years the only reason I wanted to keep breathing was to get revenge on those who had hurt my family and those I had come to regard as such.” She shot him a look that told him he was one of these people, having added three names to her list because of him.

“When I was in Winterfell, as much as I had come to understand that I loved you too, I couldn't accept when you asked me to marry you, not when my mind was still focused on crossing the last name off my list,” she explained.

“Cersei,” he said, and although it wasn't a question she nodded.

“Everyone else was already dead, whether it was by my hand or not, and somehow I was sure that after I succeeded in assassinating the queen, death would claim what was left of me. I had already escaped her too many times to think that I could do it again,” Arya continued. “But then when we were a few meters from reaching where Cersei was, Clegane stopped me and told me that whatever the queen was, she was going to die, but that I had to turn around and get out of here if I wanted to live, that if I was still so focused in revenge I would end up like him.”

She couldn't stop a slight chuckle that escaped her lips.

“And I didn't want to live, that part of me wasn't there, but then I thought of my family... Jon, Bran and even Sansa. But, mostly of you. I thought in the moments that we lived together, not only in Winterfell but also on the road when we were children, and it came back, It felt like I had risen to the surface after having been drowning for a long time, and then there I knew that I had to live, that I wanted to live, and that the first thing I would do after getting out of that hell would be to tell you that I’m sorry and that love you too.”

“ _Arya,_ ” he whispered.

“I still think that I’m not a Lady to stay locked in a castle, that’s not me, but maybe I can-”

his callused hands on either side of her face made her stop in mid-sentence and look up to meet his gaze, noticing the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that told her he was smiling, but only being able to focus on the blue of their irises.

“Whatever you want to do or wherever you want to go I will follow,” Gendry said, and she felt her heart do a somersault inside her chest.

“But, you have a castle now,” she argued.

“Which was given to me by a dead queen, one who destroyed the place I grew up in while having a tantrum,” he contradicted her, and they both looked at the window next to them, from where they could still see the smoke emerging from the scorched buildings of King's Landing. “I told you that night that none of this would matter without you, and I repeat it now, completely sober, neither the title nor the castle matter if you are not there to share it with me, so if you are not a Lady I am not a Lord, and neither I need an imposing castle housed on the edge of a cliff, that’s not me,” he concluded her hands grabbed onto his forearms.

“I love you,” she couldn't help saying it again, and his smile grew.

“I love you too, Arya Stark,” he replied, and then their lips met and she felt as if she had finally returned home.

Jon was going back to the wall, Sansa was the queen in the north, and Bran was now the king of the seven fucking kingdoms ... or was it six now? she didn't care, the only thing she could think about was the way her lips and Gendry's had met in that deserted corridor of the Red Keep a few hours ago, and how after this they had stayed embraced for a long time until they had to part to go to the Dragonpit, with the promise that he would come to her room later in the night so they could finish their conversation.

It was five past nine, had he repented? Had he realized that he really didn't love her enough to leave everything behind? She shook her head and scolded herself, he would come, he _HAD_ to come.

A slight knock on her door interrupted her restless pacing around the room at eight minutes later, and she sighed in relief before telling him to enter, feeling her heart skip a beat when she saw him standing under the door frame.

He looked too handsome.

“Close the door,” she ordered, and then proceeded to kiss him wildly as soon as he obeyed her command, feeling his hands resting on her hips and using this grip to press her to his body. “Where were you?” she asked him between kisses and felt him chuckle against her lips as he walked them to the featherbed.

“Had to speak with the new king,” he replied as his fingers removed the pieces of clothing that still covered her body.

“What for?” she asked him as she pulled his jerkin off his shoulders and began to work on getting rid of his tunic.

“To tell him that he will have to find a new Lord to give Storm's End to, that I had other plans.” He discarded his tunic himself, pulling it over his head and dropping it to the ground before recapturing her lips with his.

“And what did he say?” she asked when she fell back on the bed, as bare as the day she was born, and a mischievous smile appeared on her face when she saw him shed his bloody pants off without her having to tell him to.

“That it was a shame that he couldn't count on me to lead the Stormlands, but that he understood my motives,” he covered her with his naked body and began to worship her neck with tender kisses. She sighed with pleasure. “He asked me to keep the Baratheon name, though. He told me that he didn’t want his father's dear friend name to go extinct, and that I deserved it after what I had done for humanity in the long night.”

“You do,” Arya agreed, and a slight laugh escaped his lips and tickled the skin of her neck. “You gave us the weapons with which we could fight against the death, defend ourselves, without these we would all be dead.”

Gendry shook his head. “You were the one who killed their king,” he said, his hand caressing the mark on her neck left by the frozen hands, the ones that were slowly beginning to disappear.

“I couldn't have gotten to him without the weapon you made for me,” her lips found his with a soft peck, to which he responded by bringing his lips together again in a passionate kiss that made her forget the whole world, and only focus on him, on his hands running through every inch of her bare skin, on his lips reverently worshiping each wound and every scar on her, even the one on her stomach that she had acquired on the streets of Braavos. Her last coherent thought before abandoning himself to pleasure was that she still had to tell him what she had done in those years they were apart.

They were both lying on the featherbed in a tangle of limbs and blankets when dawn came. He was asleep, the slight snore of him ringing in her ear and making her feel at peace, chasing away the nightmares that had invaded her mind all those years, and comforting her in a way that nothing ever had.

She had woken up only a few minutes before, too used to wake up with the first rays of the sun to allow herself to sleep a few more minutes, and taking advantage of that calm time to admire the man who slept next to her.

She loved him, so much. And now she would have him with her for the rest of her life, because as long as she lived she wasn’t going to allow anything or anyone to separate them again.

Making love to him that night had been so different to what it had been before the long night began. There had been no rush, nor the possibility of this being their first and last time together hanging over them, and so they had taken all the necessary time to explore their bodies, to learn what to do to give each other pleasure, and to express with actions and words of adoration how much they loved each other.

And after that they had stayed there, lying on the bed, and she felt happier than she had ever felt before.

Then they spoke, she told him everything about Braavos and the house of black and white, and if at any time she felt afraid that he would judge her for what she had done on the other continent, he managed to evaporate this emotion with his hands caressing her scars and the fury she saw in his eyes when she told him how she had acquired them.

He also spoke, and this time she actually heard him when he told her about the traumatic experience he had suffered with the red witch, wishing she hadn't died the morning after the long night to be the one who murdered her, and about how Ser Davos had helped him escape on a boat, which he used to return to King's Landing and get a shop in which to continue working as a Blacksmith under a false name, and how the Onion Knight had sought him out years later to take him to Jon.

Then they had fallen asleep.

“You’re staring,” his sleepy voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

“I couldn't help it, you are beautiful,” she replied, and he chuckled before opening his eyes, the blue of these making her feel butterflies fluttering in her belly.

“ _YOU_ are beautiful,” he replied, and drew her to him to give her a tender kiss, during which she smiled.

“Stupid,” she said when their lips parted and he laughed. This is it, this was how she wanted to wake up every morning for the rest of her life. “I love you,” she whispered when his hands began to absently caress her back, and he smiled.

“I love you too, Arry,” he replied and kissed the tip of her nose, making her wrinkle it. If this was a dream, please don't let anyone wake her up. “The ship that will take Jon to the wall sets sail in a fortnight, right?” he asked and she nodded,

And although she felt sad that she was going to have to say goodbye to her brother again, at least he was still alive, and Sansa had promised that in a few months, when the Unsullied and Dothraki had left Westeros, she would pardon him from all crimes while staying in the North.

“Bran, Sansa and I will go say goodbye to him,” she replied, and he nodded.

“Good.”

“I want you to come with me,” Arya requested him, and he sighed.

“It's a family moment," he shook his head, and she brought her hand to his cheek to make him meet her eyes.

“You’re my family now,” she replied, and she buried her face in his chest, feeling loved when his arms surrounded her and held her closer.

Several minutes later he was dressing up to leave her room before the maids came in and found the former Lord of Storm’s End in their unmarried lady’s bedchamber, even after she told him she didn't care about that, and she watched him from the bed with adoration drawn on her face.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said, and she chuckled.

“Like what?” she teased, and he rolled his eyes.

“As if you wish that I was undressing to return to your side in bed instead of putting my clothes on to leave,” Gendry replied, as he put on his tunic.

“Well, that's what I want,” she replied in a shameless manner. “But you insist on maintaining customs that will be useless in a few days when we both leave this rotting city in the same boat and sharing the same cabin.”

“I don't want to cause the king's annoyance by being discovered by the servants in his sister's bed,” he argued.

“Does it matter? I'm sure he already knows about us,” she got up from the bed, completely naked, like a nymph emerging from her pond to seduce a knight, and ran one of her fingers through the fabric of her tunic when she stood in front of him. “Being the three-eyed raven and all that,” she added and he swallowed hard.

He wanted her there and then.

“I have no fucking idea what that is,” he replied, a certain part of his anatomy hardening and making it difficult for him to think about turning away and leaving that room.

“It’s complicated,” Arya smiled up at him, aware that she was accomplishing her task. “But that doesn't matter, what matters is that the door is locked, and that a princess can afford to spend a full day in bed without being disturbed.”

“So, you hate being called a lady but not a princess?” he asked, after she managed to quickly get rid of his tunic, and while her hands took care of unbuttoning his pants, without trying to stop her.

“It’s convenient at the moment,” she argued the instant his pants pooled on his feet. “Besides, we have a trip to plan, the West awaits us and if what Bran told me is true, we will also make great discoveries.”

“And we believe him because he's the three-eyed raven, right? Whatever that means,” he spoke as he obediently followed her to the bed.

“Correct,” Arya pushed him and he fell sitting on her featherbed, reminding him of their first time. “And this is the precise moment that we stop talking about my brother, okay?” she sat on his lap, and he even forgot what they were talking about, but still he nodded before they melted into a passionate kiss.

Everything was ready for them to leave.

She had already spoken with Bran and Sansa about their plans and her sister had offered her one of the ships of the northern fleet, while her brother had offered her the funds for her expedition with the only condition that she documented everything she discovered and shared with the Maesters upon her return.

Then, there was her relationship with Gendry.

She hadn’t told her brother anything about him, but she supposes that it wasn’t necessary because of what he had told her recently, as it implied that he already knew everything that had to be known. Which was fucking creepy, by the way. But she had told Sansa, and the newly appointed Queen of the North had told her that the news surprised her, but that she was happy for her, before begging her to at least do a little marriage ceremony before they set sail for the West.

She had asked Gendry then if he wanted to marry her, and he replied that he had already answered that question when HE proposed to HER in Winterfell.

They would marry before Jon's departure, to whom she had yet to tell about her relationship with Gendry, because she wanted him to walk her to the altar. And after that she and Gendry would set sail into the unknown, discover new territories, and more importantly, they would live.

Together.


End file.
